2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey is hailed as one of the
greatest films ever made. While one can readily see certain aspects of
it that are incredible, the film can also be readily dismissed as a
self-indulgent confused mess. Since I find virtue in self-indulgence,
I will choose to do the former.

The film is based on Arthur C. Clarke's novel, and is divided into
four sections. On its own, each section is brilliantly done and each
of the individual parts could be made into a movie of its own accord.
However the sections do not come coherently together. Sure, it's
possible to make a leap of imagination from one section to the next
and connect it (and several people have, offering many different
interpretations), but that doesn't mean it couldn't have been more
coherent.

The first sequence is the dawn of man sequence, where we see the
early African human (Australopithecines, surrounded by Joshua trees)
trying to eke out a survival on berries and roots, and competing with
other groups of humans for food and water. One group discovers a huge
monolith, an object from outer space, but do not realise what to do
with it. Soon after, however, they discover the use of a bone as a
club (it took them that long?) and thus begins man's degradation. As
the early hominid bludgeons his enemy to death and throws up his bone,
it turns into a spaceship as we fast-forward several millenia.

This begins the second phase, the moon landing. Here we're
introduced to humans on the moon who chance upon an amazing discovery:
a huge monolith of obviously extra-terrestrial intelligent origin. As
the moon crew investigate, a signal is sent off from the monolith in
the direction of Jupiter.

The third phase of the films involves man's travel to Jupiter. The
infamous HAL 9000, an artificially intelligent computer who becomes
unstable, dominates the story and threatens the mission.

The final phase of the film is a bit too sugary for my tastes:
Here, the one survivor of the mission to Jupiter lives his life out in
a fantasy world created by those responsible for the
monolith. Ultimately, he is reborn as a Star Child who returns to
earth.

People have argued that the monolith is what enabled the early
hominid cavemen to invent the club. My interpretation is that the
monolith was useless to the cavemen during that evolutionary
period. However, any civilisation that arose that developed the
technology enabling them to travel to a nearby moon and uncover the
object would certainly be within the reach of interplanetary
travel. Therefore, the second time around, the monolith was buried
beneath the moon's surface.

Kubrick is making socio-political commentary about at least four
issues directly connected to the four phases of the film: that the
inherent and violent nature of man is what leads to progress; the need
to succeed pits man against one another; that there is danger in
trusting machines to do everything a human does; and that there is
hope for humanity after all (i.e., by becoming Nietzsche's Overman).
As I mention above, these four issues don't necessarily merge in a
coherent manner.

2001: A Space Odyssey pays painstaking attention to
detail. There is no sound in the space. The dialogue is daringly
minimalist. The re-use of previously composed classical music, Johann
Strauss' Blue Danube waltz and Richard Strauss'
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (cf. Nietzsche reference above),
for the film score is a great master stroke. All of these features go
to make 2001: A Space Odyssey one of the most
thought-provoking films I've seen.